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Fred Feldman “Death” Fred Feldman written for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Craig (Routledge, 1998) (this draft is slightly different from the version that finally appeared in the encyclopedia) Reflection on death gives rise to a variety of philosophical questions. One of the deepest of these is a question about the nature of death. Typically, philosophers interpret this question as a call for an analysis, or definition, of the concept of death. Plato proposed to define death as the separation of soul from body. This definition is not acceptable to materialists, who think that there are no souls. It is also unacceptable to anyone who thinks that plants and lower animals have no souls, but can die. Others have defined death simply as the cessation of life. This too is problematic, since an organism that goes into suspended animation ceases to live, but may not die. Death is described as ‘mysterious’. It is not clear what this means. Suppose we cannot formulate a satisfactory analysis of the concept of death. In this respect death would be mysterious – but no more so than any other concept that defies analysis. Some have said that what makes death especially mysterious and frightening is the fact that we cannot know what it will be like. Death is typically regarded as a great evil, especially if it strikes someone too soon. However, Epicurus and others argued that death cannot harm those who die, since people go out of existence when they die, and people cannot be harmed at times when they don’t exist. Others have countered that the evil of death may lie in the fact that death deprives us of the goods we would have enjoyed if we had lived. On this view death may be a great evil for a person, even if the person ceases to exist at the moment of death. Philosophers have also been concerned with the question whether people can survive death. The question is open to several interpretations, depending upon what we take people to be, and what we mean by ‘survive’. Traditional materialists take each person to be a purely physical object – a human body. Since human bodies generally continue to exist after death, such materialists presumably must say that we generally survive death. However, such survival would be of little value to the deceased, since the surviving entity is just a lifeless corpse. Dualists take each person to have both a body and a soul. A dualist may maintain that at death the soul separates from the body, and continues to enjoy (or suffer) various experiences after the body has died. 1 Some who believe in survival think that the eternal life of the soul after bodily death can be a good beyond comparison. But Bernard Williams has argued that eternal life would be profoundly unattractive. If we imagine ourselves perpetually stuck at a given age, we may reasonably fear that eternal life will eventually become rather boring. On the other hand, if we imagine ourselves experiencing an endless sequence of varied “lives”, each disconnected from the others, then it is questionable whether it will in fact be “one person” who lives eternally. Finally, there are questions about death and the meaning of life. Suppose death marks the end of all conscious experience. Would our lives then be rendered meaningless? Or would the fact of impending death help us to recognize the value of our lives, and thereby give deeper meaning to life? 1 Analysis of death vs. criterion of death 2 Death as separation of body from soul 3 Death as the cessation of life 4 The mystery of death 5 The evil of death 6 The survival of death 7 Immortality 8 Death and the meaning of life 1 Analysis of death vs. criterion of death The most fundamental philosophical question about death is the question about its nature, or essence – ‘What is death?’ When philosophers offer answers to this question, they may be said to be defining death. It is important to recognize that two distinct projects may be confused under a single name – ‘defining death’. The first of these projects is a project in conceptual analysis. Those who engage in it try to give an account of the nature of death. Since death is the event that takes place when an organism dies, one way to explain the nature of death would be to formulate a definition of ‘x dies at t’. If successful, such a definition would tell us what we mean when we say that something dies, and thus reveal the nature of death. Among the most popular proposals is: D1: x dies at t =df. x ceases to be alive at t. A definition of this sort is successful if it is true. A fully adequate definition of death would display the structure of the concept of death. The second, or “criterial”, project is a project in public policy. For many practical purposes, it is important that we have agreement on the question whether a person is dead or alive. Furthermore, for practical purposes, it is important that there be agreement about the time of death. Even if we agreed that D1 is true, we might still be in grave doubt about whether certain people are dead. For example, consider a person whose brain has been irreparably destroyed in an accident, but whose 2 blood is being oxygenated and circulated by a combination of life-support mechanisms. Since it is unclear whether people such as this have ceased being alive, it is unclear whether they are dead. Those who engage in the criterial project try to formulate a relatively easy to apply criterion of human death. Such a criterion would pick out an observable change that occurs around the time when most would agree humans die. The proposal then would be that this change (e.g., cessation of electrical activity in the brain; cessation of respiration; cessation of heartbeat; etc.) should be taken to be the legal mark of death. If the proposal were accepted, then medical personnel, undertakers, etc. could appeal to the criterion as a legal defense. ‘There were no brainwaves when I shut off the respirator – so he was already dead.’ Conceptual analysis would yield a necessary truth about the structure of the concept of death. The search for such analyses fits into an honored philosophical tradition going back to Plato and Aristotle. It is relevantly like the attempts to analyse the concepts of knowledge, causation, goodness, truth, etc. So the analytical project is classically philosophical. The criterial project, if successful, would lead to a contingently useful criterion of human death. If it were accepted by the courts, it might remain in use for decades (until medical technology made it obsolete). But it would at best be a contingent principle whose value would be temporary and practical. The project itself requires knowledge of medical details and legal precedents, but does not seem to be a project for which philosophers are especially well qualified. I shall have nothing further to say about the criterial project. 2 Death as separation of body from soul In the Phaedo, Plato describes an exchange between Socrates and Simmias: Soc: ... Do we believe that there is such a thing as death? Soc: Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but death? Sim: Just so. These remarks suggest a view about the nature of death: D2: x dies at t =df. x’s soul separates from x’s body at t. This is problematic. One problem is that D2 entails that if a thing is to die, it must have a soul. Yet many find it hard to believe that plants (which clearly can die) have souls. Similarly, many find it hard to believe that every living cell has a soul. Yet these cells can die. Many philosophers accept a materialist conception of people. They think that people are material objects – their bodies. Materialists of this sort think that people have no souls. Unless they want to say that people never die, D2 is clearly unacceptable to such materialists. 3 3 Death as the cessation of life The most popular analysis of the concept of death is expressed by D1. One problem with D1 is obscurity. There is great controversy about the concept of life. Some claim that to be alive is to be able to engage in life processes, such as nutrition, respiration, and reproduction. Others say that life requires the presence of a soul, or other animating substance. Still others define life by appeal to the notion that living things are able to resist the force of entropy. A number of incompatible accounts of the nature of life have been proposed, but none enjoys universal acceptance. Hence, it is not entirely clear that we know precisely what we mean when we say that something is alive. Since in D1 death is defined by appeal to the concept of life, D1 inherits the obscurity of the concept of life. Furthermore, D1 seems to be inconsistent with certain empirical facts. One fact concerns suspended animation. Freezing, drying, and certain other procedures may be used to arrest the life functions of formerly living entities. Viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms are placed in suspended animation in laboratories as a matter of course. Sperm, eggs, and blastulas of horses, cows, and even human beings may be held in this state for months or years.
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